anthropo-

before a vowel, anthrop-, word-forming element meaning "pertaining to man or human beings," from Greek anthropos "man; human being" (including women), as opposed to the gods, from andra (genitive andros), Attic form of Greek aner "man" (as opposed to a woman, a god, or a boy), from PIE root *ner- (2) "man," also "vigorous, vital, strong."

Anthropos sometimes is explained as a compound of aner and ops (genitive opos) "eye, face;" so literally "he who has the face of a man." The change of -d- to -th- is difficult to explain; perhaps it is from some lost dialectal variant, or the mistaken belief that there was an aspiration sign over the vowel in the second element (as though *-dhropo-), which mistake might have come about by influence of common verbs such as horao "to see." But Beekes writes, "As no IE explanation has been found, the word is probably of substrate origin."